Apple today introduced Safari 3, the world’s fastest and easiest-to-use web browser for Windows PCs and Macs.
Safari is the fastest browser running on Windows, based on the industry standard iBench tests, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari joins iTunes® in delivering Apple’s legendary user experience to both Windows and Mac® users as well as full support of open Internet standards. Safari 3 features easy-to-manage bookmarks, effortless browsing with easy-to-organize tabs and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information. Safari 3 public beta is available today as a free download at www.apple.com/safari.

“We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safari’s superior browsing experience too.”

Safari has always been the fastest browser on the Mac and now it’s the fastest browser on Windows, loading and drawing web pages up to twice as fast as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Mozilla Firefox 2. The speed of Safari combined with its intuitive user interface lets users spend more time surfing the web and less time waiting for pages to load. Other Safari features now available to Windows users include SnapBack™, one-click access to an initial search query; resizable text fields; and private browsing to ensure that information about an individual’s browsing history isn’t stored.

Safari 3 supports all modern Internet standards so users can view websites as they were meant to be seen, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Java. Safari software updates are delivered seamlessly through Apple’s Software Update application, which automatically checks for updates.

& according to Apple…

The fastest web browser on any platform, Safari loads pages up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.

And it executes JavaScript up to 2.8 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.

What does all that mean for you? Less time loading pages and more time enjoying them.

It doesn’t mean anything for me… I can’t say whether Safari is the fastest browser or not, but I can definitely say that the Apple site is one of the slowest I’ve ever seen (maybe because of the huge traffic following the release of Safari). I couldn’t load it with IE7 (it crashed & I had to kill the process), and it took me more than 5 min on Firefox.

Furthermore, I couldn’t download the beta release, and you shouldn’t either. That’s because this is a beta version & has loads of bugs and security exploits.
6 bugs, 4 DoS and 2 remote executions here.
0day exploit in 2 hours here.
I prefer to wait for the final release version in October to know whether Safari is the faster web browser. For the time being, I’ll use a Safari theme on Firefox…

If you want to know more about Safari, www.apple.com/safari
Download Safari 3 Public Beta for Windows at www.apple.com/safari/download